Islam, on the other hand, is
presented in a more positive (yet
distorted) light, despite the fact that
Islam has always been a parasite
on other societies and has spread
primarily through conquest.

The authors suggest that Europeanshad an inflated opinion of themselvesand saw themselves as unlocking thesecrets of nature, while amassing greatwealth and military power, all at theexpense of other regions:“[T]hey judged other peoples andcultures as inferior and took on thearrogance of believing themselvessuperior to all others. In manycases, this belief was added totheir already existing belief inthe superiority of their religion,Christianity” (p. 257).

Yet, the reality is that Europeanswere entirely justified in thinkingthis way. Indeed, their greater power,greater wealth, and greater freedom,not to mention their technologicalsuperiority, was proof enough oftheir cultural superiority. Of course,European elites also believed that theircultural superiority was due to thembeing more ‘highly evolved’ than thosefrom other cultures—a point that theauthors once again fail to acknowledge.

Their contempt for Europeans,
however, does not stop them from
painting hagiographic portraits
of both Marx and Engels and their
socialist program. But you won’t
find any reference to Magna Carta,
the Reformation, or the Westminster
system of government despite their
monumental impact on both European
and world history.

Politics and economics

In regard to international relations
and global politics, they note that the
post-WWI League of Nations (and
related institutions) were the first
formal structures of world government
but they were too weak to keep the
peace. The same could be said for the
post-WWII United Nations.

According to the authors,
communists saw themselves
as the leaders of the oppressed
classes throughout the world,
the workers and peasants, and
were prepared to use coercive
methods (i.e. violence and
brutality) in their attempt to build
a better society. They attempted
to build a modern industrial
economy without capitalism’s
motivational forces, because they
viewed capitalism as the source
of exploitation and inequality.
In order to do this effectively,
the state had to exercise great
unilateral power and had to be
willing to rule brutally when
faced with opposition.

In the authors’ estimation,“the Soviet Union offered atempting alternative to thecapitalist societies of the West”(p. 273). Russia had, throughviolent struggle, escaped the gripof the capitalist world and built apowerful modern economy againstthe odds. The Soviet Union also gaveeconomic, technical and sometimesmilitary, support to its allies, includingCuba, Nigeria, and Egypt. Theyclaim that some of the results werespectacular: “In China, in NorthKorea, and in parts of Eastern Europethe methods of the Soviet Unionwere used to build the foundationsof modern industrial economies”(p. 273). On this point, the authorsare delusional! The only things theSoviet methods brought were equallydistributed poverty, oppression,suffering and death! The Soviets andtheir allies were responsible for allthe greatest of human slaughters inhistory—Communist dictatorshipsmurdered hundreds of millions of theirown people.
7

The authors later claim that the
Industrial Revolution raised the
wealth of Europe and North America but led to a sharp decline in the
relative wealth of East Asia. There
is a subtle implication here that East
Asia’s sharp decline is the fault of
Europe and North America, presumably because they plundered and
exploited East Asia! But nothing
could be further from the truth. Firstly,
Europe’s rise was not uniform. Not
every European nation had the same
economic success and rise in wealth.
Secondly, those that did see economic
gains were the beneficiaries of their
own technological innovations that
were encouraged and embraced.

Environmentalism and
climate change

The authors go on to suggest thathumans are unfairly dominating andexploiting the earth:“[T]he big story of the twentiethcentury is how one species suddenlybegan to dominate the energy andresources of the biosphere as a whole.

Figure 1. Big History, like many other modern
education texts, reflects Karl Marx’s ideas about
social evolution and his anti-capitalist, anti-western,
and anti-Christian sentiments.